Mona Kemp (palestgold) wrote in cirque_rp, @ 2019-04-11 09:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | c: kit turner, c: mona kemp, player: circe, player: leah |
Who: Kit Turner + Mona Kemp
What: A Follow Up Interview With A (Separate) Vampire
Where: The tea shop
When: Wednesday night (10th), just before show time.
Warnings: Just Mona flailing about death.
Mona had spent a lot the night before sitting and crying in her bathtub. She had to thank the cirque for providing that to go with her room at least. Maybe it had known how much she was going to need it. After her realisation about the circus and about her new friends in it, Marilyn had come to her and said comforting things and tried to look after her, but as much as Mona tried to explain - we're in a den of killers, how does this not upset you? - Marilyn didn't seem to be all that fazed. In some ways, that made Mona feel even worse. Was she just overreacting? Was this just normal and Mona didn't realise it? Mona was well aware that her family sheltered her from a lot. She was not only the baby but also the only one without any powers, so they had always protected her. And so maybe Marilyn was right. You've probably been talking to people like this for your whole life, her sister had said, and that just made it even harder to remember how to breathe. The world was just murderers and monsters and everyone was out for themselves. Had Mona imagined kindness? Invented humanity where there was none? Eventually she'd sent Marilyn away, telling her she felt better and returning to her room. She didn't feel better, but Marilyn was making her feel worse. In the bath Mona had sunk herself completely under the surface, eyes squeezed shut, and wondered if she screamed then would anyone be able to hear her. She slept (to no great surprise) atrociously. When Wednesday evening rolled around, Mona focused on preparing herself for work. She ignored everyone around her and cleaned things in the shop that didn't need to be cleaned. She put on her costume and her shoes and set out the teas along the bench. Then, because she'd run out of activities to keep her going, Mona sat down on the second floor of her shop, legs hanging down over the edge and her cheeks pressed between a pair of bars. Dusk had settled over the circus by now and showtime was coming up. Despite now being dressed up like she belonged, Mona didn't feel like a part of this place anymore. She had been starting to feel so settled and now she couldn't stop the churning sickness in her stomach. When she saw Kit coming down the midway she straightened but didn't stand up. "Hey!" she shouted over to get his attention. He'd seemed so normal and nice when they'd met. Mona's hands gripped the bars, white-knuckled. "Tell me what you are now." She didn't mean for her voice to sound so pleading and pathetic, but it was out now. She swallowed against the hard lump in her chest. |
By all accounts, the evening was a typical one for Kit. Before showtime, he lingered amongst the crowds of the circus, soaking in the electric atmosphere and thriving off the intoxicating scent of excitement in the air. In his mind, nothing seemed amiss. Then again, his entire world hadn't been so recently upended. Walking down the path, a paper bag filled with bonbons in hand as he casually nodded and flashed flirtatious smiles towards patrons that he passed, Kit paused at the shout that was clearly aimed at him. A quick scan of his surroundings led his gaze to settle on Mona, her freckles standing out sharply against her pale cheeks as she stared down at him with the challenging demand lingering in the air between them. With the barest hint of a frown, the vampire moved over to the tea shop and glanced up at the girl who looked down at him. It was obvious that she wasn't in the calmest frame of mind, even without the panicked scent radiating from her or the weak tone of her voice. "You mean aside from devilishly handsome?" he quipped, grinning up at her. So it might not have been the ideal moment for jokes but Kit had never been one for perfect timing. |
At Kit's words, Mona's expression hardened and she grabbed hold of the railing and used it to pull herself up to stand. She wrapped her hands around the banister as though keeping her body steady would steady her mind. Marilyn had promised Mona that she was safe. Mona didn't feel safe. Mona felt like the circus had lied to her, like it had offered something beautiful in one hand while holding a big ugly spider hidden away in the other. Had it really been like that? Had the circus tried to hide anything or was it simply that Mona was so enamoured with the magic of it all that she hadn't wanted to see? She knew which one was probably true and it made her furious at her own stupidity. She was just a dumb little mortal girl who'd gotten in too deep and now she had no choice but to deal with that. She had signed a contract. She had made her stupid spider-filled bed and now she had to sleep in it. And Kit, the complete asshole, wanted to throw her a line about being handsome? "Everyone's handsome here," she snapped. "It must come along with all the murdering." He can't hurt you, Mona reminded herself, even as she felt herself slightly drawing back after her words were spoken. He's not allowed to hurt you. |
Watching closely, Kit's gaze followed Mona as she pulled herself up, her knuckles white against the banister. He couldn't fail to notice the hard-set of her posture or the sparks that seemed to spring up in her eyes as she glared down at him. That was surprising. Kit's expression barely altered as Mona admonished him for simply existing, though a fresh glint of intrigue appeared in his eyes as he examined the tiny redhead. It was far from the worst tongue-lashing he'd gotten, during his mortal and immortal life both, but it was bold coming from somebody so utterly fragile. "Might be true for some of the others," he said casually, shrugging a shoulder before digging for another sugar-coated sweet. Popping it into his mouth, he chewed pensively for several seconds. "It's immortality in my case, but that just preserves what I already had going for me." |
"What are you?" Mona asked him again. "Is it a vampire? I saw you talking with Zane about getting a 'drink' and he's a vampire so… is that it?" She felt safe standing above him like this. Not that she was out of reach. His head came just higher than the floor of the little balcony so it would have been nothing for him to reach out and grab her if he wanted to. Maybe a part of her was daring him to do that. Maybe it was why she was planting her feet so hard. |
While it was in his nature to be elusive, Kit didn't feel any desire to prolong Mona's evident distress. So when she asked him whether he was a vampire, even backing up her claim with hard evidence, he didn't attempt to deny it. "You're observant," he said, his lips curling into a playful smile. "Yes, that's what I am. But, for the record, I've always been this attractive." |
Mona didn't smile back and could not believe the nerve of Kit thinking she might. "I'm still not ready to find you endearing again," Mona told him sharply. "Honest or not." Her eyes felt really wide and she felt like she was still looking a little shell-shocked. So she forced her gaze down at her hands and tried to take a few deep breaths. When she'd met Kit the first time he'd seemed so nice. He'd said sweet things and complimented her tea and liked the way she'd picked his lock. Just like Zane had seemed so nice. Just like Elia had seemed so nice. Mona felt a wash of nausea and dizziness sweep over her and everything seemed to go a little blurry. She was glad she had something to hold onto and she gripped the banister harder, worried she was about to faint. She'd never fainted before, but her recent life was providing a lot of firsts. When she looked up, her expression was newly offended. "Did you even like my tea?" |
A crease formed between Kit's brows as his smile faded. He wasn't entirely sure why he was being singled out by the human when, for once, he had simply been minding his own business and getting on with his evening. While he could have asked her why she was aiming her scorn at him individually, or gotten irritated by being spoken to so flippantly, he instead replied with: "So you're saying you found me endearing?" Luckily for both of them, Kit had nothing but time. He waited patiently as Mona seemed to be having some kind of internal battle, or trying to gather her thoughts, or focusing on not vomiting. Whatever was going on, he was too curious to leave now. What he hadn't expected was the question about her tea. Kit could still recall the tingle of the chilli on his tongue and the scent of cinnamon and vanilla mingling in the air. A tang of the latter was present even now, reminding him of their first exchange, bringing each detail back to him with astounding clarity. "Of course I did," Kit said, his lips dipping into a confused frown. "Why would I say something like that and not mean it?" |
Mona watched him. Her expression had not turned to anything like a smile, but it had softened from anger back into the forlorn hopelessness that had taken her over for the last day. He'd liked her tea. Seemed almost worse that everything wasn't a lie, that she would have to dig through to find those things properly. "Of course I found you endearing," Mona told him, annoyed that she had to spell it out. "You were some sort of supernatural lock-picker who kissed my hand like an edwardian suitor." She pointed at him accusingly. "Which should have been my first clue that you were old and weird. But everyone here was endearing! That's the whole fucking problem." Mona refused to get teary. Angry was better. She was scared of falling back into crying too easily. She sat down heavily again, enough that it made the vehicle shake a little, and whispered, "I liked all of you." It wasn't meant for him to hear, but she knew once she'd said it that he would. Vampires had excellent hearing. Just one of the many things she had learned about them from Zane. |
Every micro-expression that crossed Mona's face was taken in intently by the vampire, whose gaze never wavered despite the turbulent nature of the conversation. He didn't even look away when she began to insult him and point an accusatory finger his way. "Victorian," he eventually said, his eyes narrowing slightly. "But I think it speaks more of how modern men don't seem to have the manners to be polite to a lady than how strange having them apparently makes me." Surprisingly, Kit wasn't offended by being called old or weird. He wasn't even bothered by the fact Mona seemed to have changed her mind regarding how she felt about him and everyone else at the cirque. If anything, her anger made him feel a little sad. Especially as he watched her flop back down to the ground, her face the picture of distress, and heard those uttered words that he so clearly hadn't been meant to. "Can I come up?" he asked after a moment, sounding hesitant for the first time. He wasn't especially well-versed in dealing with emotions yet he didn't think it would be right to leave Mona alone right now. |
Mona didn't look over at him but she nodded and sort of gestured a hand back into the rooms behind her. "It's a whole ladder thing," she said flatly, as though the concept of single room and the ladder that led up through it would be somehow complicated to a vampire who had lived more than a hundred years. She didn't see him move, but she felt the way the weight shifted when he entered and then he was coming out onto the balcony with her. She looked up at him but didn't know what to say. She didn't know what she wanted to say. |
As appreciative of the instructions as he was, Kit had no use for ladders. Even as a human, he had been accustomed to climbing heights much taller than the two-storey tea shop. Yet rather than pull himself up and over the railings as he typically would have, he made his way through the door instead. Sitting down next to Mona, Kit slid his legs through the gaps of the banister uprights as she had been sitting when he'd first arrived. He remained silent for a few moments, simply looking at her as he worked out what to say, before heaving an unnecessary sigh. "What sort of things did you like about everyone?" he asked, turning to look out across the twinkling lights of the circus as the din of the patrons grew steadily louder. For once, it was clear that he wasn't simply fishing for compliments. |
Mona thought about that for a long while, watching the wooden planks that made up the floor beneath her. Eventually she said, "You were all different. You were all new and unlike anything I'd met before. And yet none of you told me I didn't belong." She scrunched up her face, setting her jaw to stop that damn threat of tears again. "I'm so used to not belonging anywhere at all. My family are all magic, so I never really really fit there." She shrugged, uncomfortable but exhausted, not sure why she was sharing these things other than she saw no point in not doing it. "And then when I was with other people I had to lie to them, because they didn't know the things I did,, so I didn't fit there either." She looked out across the midway. "I just-" she sighed. "I just really wanted to fit here." |
Listening closely, Kit continued to look out across the circus. It had been his home for five years now, somewhere he'd felt content enough to remain despite his wandering heart. There were days when he wondered why he stayed, as with every other place before it, yet he'd never felt an urge to leave. It was safe, familiar. It was with that in mind that he took in Mona's words, his expression softening still. "I can't speak for anyone else but I think you belong here," he said quietly. "If you didn't, you wouldn't have been offered a place. So…why do you think you don't fit in here all of a sudden?" |
Mona looked at him seriously. "Because how can I stay in a place that puts so little value on the lives of humans?" She swallowed hard and shook her head. "How can I pretend I'm a good person if I can sit by and watch that happen? Are you so far from being human that you can't understand why that would upset me? I'm nineteen. The only death I've ever known before was my grandmother and a cat. The worst thing I've ever done is- Well," she shrugged and then wrapped her arms around herself. "It definitely wasn't killing anyone." |
The bluntness of Mona's words caused Kit to finally look at her again, his upper body shifting back slightly as a flicker of surprise passed across his face. While it was far from the first time that his humanity had been brought into question, it was still a little alarming. "I hate to break this to you but humans kill others all the time," he said, his voice low. There was no heat in it, however, simply the crispness of honesty. "Most of the time without motive. That happens here too, of course, but most of the time there's at least a reason." It wasn't Kit's intention to make Mona feel worse about the situation. On the other hand, it also wasn't his place to try and talk her into staying if she didn't want to. "There are other humans here too," he went on to say, once again turning his gaze away. "Are they bad people for staying? What about the creatures who don't kill? Or those who need to survive but don't go so far as to end a life?" Then, after a moment: "Who gets to decide who's good and who's bad?" |
"I don't know," Mona said with frustration, looking at him again. "I can't decide for other people. I don't know and I don't care who stays or who goes for their own personal moral code, but my moral code doesn't know what to do with any of this." She closed her eyes and dropped her head back against the wall behind her. "Humans might kill each other, but I don't hang out with humans who kill each other. I've always had a very firm not being friends with bad people deal." Although to be honest, Mona had mostly had a very firm not being friends with anyone at all deal before coming here, something she had never wanted but had ended up with anyway. "Who decides good and evil," Mona repeated, before taking a long breath and then looked back at Kit. "So are you telling me that you only kill bad people?" She didn't sound accusatory, even though everything in her said that should be an accusation. She didn't know what to believe, but if he told her that he hunted the wicked and never hurt the innocent, she might choose to believe him. "Or that you only feed from willing people who know what they're doing?" |
A part of Kit wanted to ask Mona how exactly she knew that the humans she knew hadn't killed other people, but he refrained. It wasn't really the point. Especially not when Mona turned the conversation back to him specifically. "I don't know," he replied shortly, leaning forward to rest his head against the banister. He let his eyes slip closed as he thought about her questions. In truth, he rarely had any idea about those he fed from. It wasn't something he typically thought about. He was a being in need of sustenance and he sought it where available. That was the cold, hard truth of it. "I don't intend to kill people. That's not to say I haven't or that I won't ever again. But that isn't—I don't think that's proof of me being good or bad either way. I'm bad, sure, but not because of that." |
While Kit's eyes were closed, Mona watched his face, watched for any tiny changes in his expression and how she could read them. She had no reason to think he wasn't being honest with her, but she didn't know if that made anything better. She wasn't sure, right now, that she knew what could make anything better. She wanted a long bath and a long cry, but she had signed a contract that said she would be out here and working and if she broke that… well, Kennet was scary even before Mona had started realising what kind of a place this was. She wasn't going to break her contract. If nothing else, Mona was both stubborn and well behaved. "I think I'm a good person," Mona said after a long time. "I try not to hurt people. I help out with charities. I like being kind because it makes me feel good to know I've made someone else feel good." She licked at her dry lips and scratched at a spot of dirt on her loosely done-up corset. "I don't know if I'm going to turn into something else here. I don't know if my sisters will as well." |
"I think you're a good person too," Kit admitted, glancing at Mona from the corner of his eye. "Even before you told me all of that. Now I think you're especially good." He himself had never been a very good person, in life or death, yet he didn't say as much. It wasn't about him right now. Although he wasn't certain of Mona's possible reactions, Kit gravitated towards her warmth and gently nudged her shoulder with his own; a show of solidarity, of his presence at her side. "If you need to see the future, there are people here who can do that for you," he said, though he wasn't being entirely serious. He didn't think Mona was the type to want to know her destiny before it happened. "Or you can just wait and find out." |
At least Mona was sure of the good person part then. Even if she was sure of literally nothing else anymore. She gave him a strained smile when he bumped her shoulder and hoped it wasn't about to turn into a hug. Mona wasn't really a hugger but she usually felt compelled to hug people back if they started it, just to not be rude. But it wasn't a hug. It was just a friendly little bump and she shook her head at the idea. "I don't think I'd much like to know the future," she said. Or maybe it would help… or possibly be even worse. Mona didn't know, and she supposed that was always the risk with things like that. More people were starting to appear on the midway and Mona knew if nothing else, she had a job she was being paid to do. "I need to open up and get the teas started." |
With a faint hum of agreement, Kit watched as more people began to appear on the path below them. The sky was much darker now than it had been when Mona had first called to him, signalling that the shows at the Top were soon to begin, and that he ought to take his leave too. Gracefully returning to his feet, Kit held out a hand to help Mona up. "I'm sure things are strange for you right now," he said, aiming to be as gentle as possible. "But changes take time to adjust to. I hope you decide to stick around. The place is a little better with you here, Ms. Kemp." |
Mona took his hand to get up (again, since it was rude to refuse the offer) and nodded. "Hey, I'm on a contract," she shrugged. At his last words she smiled just little, although it was still sad and tired. She would have to put on a big smile for her customers very soon, but for a few more moments she could feel and display any of her genuine emotions. "I'll see you around," she told him. |
"I sure hope so," Kit said, nodding shortly at her before letting her hand go and making for the exit. While it wasn't nearly as positive as their first meeting, given the heavy subject matter, Kit hoped that it wasn't their last. He'd meant what he had said about the cirque being a better place with Mona there, despite how short a time she'd been present, and he hoped that, in time, she came to see it as something akin to a home too. |